Pushing with an epidural - Page 2

[kittywitty]

Originally Posted by caned & able

I did not know that was still done.

That can cause brain damage and oxygen deprivation in a baby that is ready to be born and breathe...! Hospital personnel know that!

He was also induced a month early thanks to incorrect u/s dating and has some neurological delays. I don't know if it's still done, but that was 8 years ago and they did the same to my SIL who came in pushing after a 20 minute labor 6 years ago.

[cileag]

Originally Posted by omshantihi

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and advice. I'll talk to my ob again about whether an epi is absolutely necessary and how much time it would buy in case of an emergency. Some of you asked what the bleeding issue was. It's not a bleeding disorder, it's a placenta issue. I had a marginal previa until a couple of weeks ago, now it's a very low lying placenta. I'm at 38 weeks now. I haven't had a single bleed or even spotting all through my pregnancy, but my ob says that could change once dilation starts. They're basically worried about adruption (sp?) during active labor and excessive bleeding during placental delivery. I'm fine with getting a pit shot for the afterbirth.

What I've seen for this type of situation where I work is maintaining IV access with a hep or saline lock, and probably continuous monitoring, but I have never seen an epidural ordered solely for risk of postpartum hemorrhage/abruption.

An epidural is not particularly useful in my experience in the event of a truly emergent c/s anyway. You have to dose an epidural more heavily, which takes time, and I find they usually put you to sleep anyway---so I think you have options if you want them, mama.

[StarMama]

The nurse held Orion's head in trying to wait for the doctor as well (he went from barely crowing to *tada* born when I started throwing up).

I've had two epidurals during pushing a baby out, and had help the first time around holding my legs up which really helped out a lot. My second was I'm sure outside of the norm in a hospital setting because I waited until she was crowning to push (we knew her heart had stopped prior to labor starting, so the staff was fine with my choice to let my body do the work to birth her) but again it wasn't hard to figure out where to push for me at least.

[Darlingricki74]

With my first, I couldn't feel anything, as soon as I was dilated to 10 they had me start pushing. Couldn't feel/move my legs at all, didn't feel any pressure or need to push, nothing. Ended up pushing for 3 hours, they used forceps, and we had a shoulder dystocia(he's fine now, but wasn't breathing and ended up in the NICU).

My second was born a few weeks ago. I was induced due to high blood pressure. I had an epi at 4 centimeters. As I got close to 10 they turned it down or off, and kept asking me if I felt pressure, or an urge to push. They waited until I said yes, I thought I felt like pushing. I pushed 4 times, less than 5 minutes and she was out! Towards the end I was feeling my contractions, lots of pressure and just a tiny bit of pain(they were feeling like very early labor contractions) as the epi wore off. It was perfect, I was feeling enough to push effectively, I felt her moving down and I felt her come out, but I wasn't in any real pain.